This is my last column for The Wall Street Journal, after 22 years of reviewing consumer technology products here.

So I thought I’d talk about the dozen personal-technology products I reviewed that were most influential over the past two decades. Obviously, narrowing so many products in the most dynamic of modern industries down to 12 is a subjective exercise and others will disagree.

Though most were hits, a couple weren’t blockbusters, financially, and one was an outright flop. Instead, I used as my criteria two main things.

First, the products had to improve ease of use and add value for average consumers. That was the guiding principle I laid down in the first sentence of my first column, in 1991: “Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it’s not your fault.”

Second, I chose these 12 because each changed the course of digital history by influencing the products and services that followed, or by changing the way people lived and worked. In some cases, the impact of these mass-market products is still unfolding. All of these products had predecessors, but they managed to take their categories to a new level.

Some readers will complain that Apple is overrepresented. My answer: Apple introduced more influential, breakthrough products for average consumers than any other company over the years of this column.

1. Newton MessagePad (1993)

This hand-held computer from Apple was a failure, even a joke, mainly because the company promised it could flawlessly recognize handwriting. It didn’t. But it had one feature that foreshadowed some of today’s most cutting-edge technology: An early form of artificial intelligence. You could scrawl “lunch with Linda Jones on Thursday” and it would create a calendar entry for the right time with the right person.

2. Netscape Navigator (1994)

The first successful consumer Web browser, it was later crushed by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. But it made the Web a reality for millions and its influence has been incalculable. Every time you go to a Web page, you are seeing the legacy of Netscape in action.

3. Windows 95 (1995)

This was the Microsoft operating system that cemented the graphical user interface and the mouse as the way to operate a computer. While Apple’s Macintosh had been using the system for a decade and cruder versions of Windows had followed, Windows 95 was much more refined and spread to a vastly larger audience than the Mac did.

Windows 95 made the mouse a mainstay for computer users. Associated Press

4. The Palm Pilot (1997)

The Palm Pilot led to one of the first smartphones, the Treo. SSPL via Getty Images

The first successful personal digital assistant, the Pilot was also the first hand-held computer to be widely adopted. It led to one of the first smartphones, the Treo, and attracted a library of third-party apps, foreshadowing today’s giant app stores.

5. Google Search (1998)

From the start, Google was faster than its predecessors. Getty Images

The minute I used Google, it was obvious it was much faster and more accurate than previous search engines. It’s impossible to overstate its importance, even today. In many ways, Google search propelled the entire Web.

6. The iPod (2001)

Apple’s iPod was the first mainstream digital media player.

Apple’s iPod was the first mainstream digital media player, able to hold 1,000 songs in a device the size of a deck of playing cards. It lifted the struggling computer maker to a new level and led to the wildly successful iTunes store and a line of popular mobile devices.

7. Facebook (2004)

Just as Netscape opened the Web, Facebook made the Internet into a social medium. There were some earlier social networks. But Facebook became the social network of choice, a place where you could share everything from a photo of a sunset to the news of a birth or death with a few friends, or with hundreds of thousands. Today, over a billion people use it and it has changed the entire concept of the Internet.

8. Twitter (2006)

Like Facebook, Twitter changed the way people live digitally. AFP/Getty Images

Often seen as Facebook’s chief competitor, Twitter is really something different — a sort of global instant-messaging system. It is used every second to alert huge audiences to everything from revolutions to interesting Web posts, or just to offer opinions on almost anything — as long as they fit in 140 characters. Like Facebook, it has changed the way people live digitally.

9. The iPhone (2007)

The iPhone was the first truly smart smartphone. AFP/Getty Images

Apple electrified the tech world with this device — the first truly smart smartphone. It is an iPod, an Internet device and a phone combined in one small gadget. Its revolutionary multi-touch user interface is gradually replacing the PC’s graphical user interface on many devices.

A year after it was introduced, it was joined by the App Store, which allowed third-party developers to sell programs, or apps, for the phone. They now number about a million. It has spawned many competitors that have collectively moved the Internet from a PC-centric system to a mobile-centric one.

10. Android (2008)

Google quickly jumped into the mobile world the iPhone created with this operating system that has spread to hundreds of devices using the same type of multi-touch interface. Android is now the dominant smartphone platform, with its own huge selection of apps.

While iPhones have remained relatively pricey, Android is powering much less costly phones.

11. The MacBook Air (2008)

The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs introduced this iconic slim, light laptop by pulling it out of a standard manila envelope. It was one of the first computers to ditch the hard disk for solid-state storage and now can be seen all over — on office desks, on campuses and at coffee shops. It spawned a raft of Windows-based light laptops called Ultrabooks. I consider it the best laptop ever made.

12. The iPad (2010)

With this 10-inch tablet, Apple finally cracked the code on the long-languishing tablet category. Along with other tablets, it is gradually replacing the laptop for many uses and is popular with everyone from kids to CEOs. Developers have created nearly 500,000 apps for the iPad, far more than for any other tablet.

As I sign off from this column, I want to thank The Wall Street Journal for giving me the freedom to write these reviews all these years. And I especially owe great thanks to the readers who have followed my work. I am not retiring — I will still be doing reviews on a new online site. And the Journal will continue to offer tech reviews, penned by talented successors, which will continue to guide readers as consumer technology evolves.

Home medical devices, as opposed to fitness products like activity-measuring wrist bands, have too often been stuck in the past, even as smartphones have zoomed ahead on hardware and software.

A prime example is the device used by diabetics, a small gadget called a glucometer that analyzes a tiny drop of blood. Diabetics usually use these several times daily to determine the levels of glucose in their blood and make decisions on diet, exercise and medication.

Most glucometers use ancient technology that provides only a snapshot of information. And most lack wireless connections for easily transmitting readings to digital devices for more sophisticated analysis or for sharing the data with a doctor. Many diabetics still log their results using pen and paper.

I’ve been reviewing two diabetes meters that aim to change that. Both are able to instantly send results to a smartphone over a Bluetooth wireless connection. Each offers an app that collects and analyzes the readings, and gives a picture of how their users are doing over time. Both apps can also send reports from the phone to a doctor or other person.

One is the iHealth Wireless Smart Gluco-Monitoring System, and comes from a company of the same name that also makes other products that aim to provide a collection of digital sensors for health measurement. It’s more of a tech company than a standard medical-device company.

The other is the OneTouch VerioSync Meter and comes from LifeScan Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company that is a leader in the glucose-monitoring business.

I’ve been testing both products for a few days, and both work as advertised. Both are FDA approved, though they operate a bit differently, and their companion apps are different.

The iHealth meter is available now, while the LifeScan product is set to come out early next year.

The iHealth Wireless Smart Gluco-Monitoring System. The meters can transmit the readings to a smartphone using a Bluetooth wireless connection.

I can recommend either for diabetics who’d like to know more at a glance, and tie their most important health-tracking device into their sophisticated phones.

One caveat: These two new meters are only partial steps toward improving diabetes care. Users will still need to prick their fingers multiple times daily to get those drops of blood. And both use disposable test strips, which can cost $1 or more apiece, before insurance.

The VerioSync looks like a traditional meter. It’s a rectangular white plastic device with a large, black inset screen that presents the glucose reading in large white type. The iHealth device is designed to look much cooler. It’s a slender, curvy white device with a blank white surface on which the reading appears in fainter blue type.

LifeScan’s new meter works only with Apple’s iOS devices — iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. It’s expected to cost $20 at launch, and $30 thereafter. A box of 25 test strips is expected to cost $40, before insurance.

The iHealth meter works with both Apple’s devices and seven Android phones. It costs $80 for a kit that includes the device, 50 strips and other accessories. More strips cost $50 for a packet of 50, before insurance.

As with any Bluetooth device, like a headset, you have to pair these meters with your phone. I found this easier with the VerioSync. In addition, the VerioSync more easily reconnected with the phone whenever it was in range and I prepared to do a test. The iHealth app always asked me to press a button on the meter to reconnect.

Both meters can be used when out of range of the smartphone to which they are paired. In these cases, the meters save the readings, and then sync them to the phone the next time you’re in range. You can also use the free apps without buying the meters, as digital logbooks. But the companies say their apps only sync data wirelessly from their own meters.

Traditional meters use small batteries that can last months. A downside of these two Bluetooth meters is that they don’t use removable batteries and must be recharged periodically. The meter can last three to four weeks on a charge for a person who tests three times daily, iHealth says. LifeScan says its meter lasts up to two weeks between charges.

I found the LifeScan VerioSync app to be richer and easier to understand. At a glance, it shows you a color-coded bar that tells you what percentages of the time you’ve been in or out of your optimal range of glucose readings for the last 14 days. You can also see your average reading, and other data, quickly. Tapping on these symbols gives more details.

There’s also a logbook that shows readings, and patterns of readings, over 14 days, or grouped by time of day. You can manually add readings from other meters, and customize your target ranges, presumably according to what your doctor recommends. You can also email screenshots, or even tables, of results.

The iHealth app is plainer, and more table-based, though it does include a simple graph to show trends. It also lets you manually enter readings and set target ranges. And it allows you to email results, in table or graphic form, or even post them to social networks. One nice addition: iHealth’s emails include a file that can be opened in a spreadsheet.

A big difference is that, when you are in Bluetooth range, the iHealth app walks you through the test-taking process on the screen of the phone, which I believe could be annoying to an experienced tester. Even in range, the VerioSync app merely receives and integrates the reading.

With iHealth, you also get access to a browser-based cloud dashboard that collects data from all of the company’s devices you might own. But I found the glucose portion of this to be pretty rudimentary. And you can still only share results via email, not by giving others permission to access your cloud account.

Either of these meters could make disease management easier for diabetics with smartphones. But the snail’s pace of improvement in these devices is maddening.

I have a vacation home and I am paying for cable service at two houses. Is there a practical way to stream TV from one house to another and eliminate one cable bill?

A:

Probably the easiest option is to buy a Slingbox, a device that starts at $180. It connects to a cable box and streams the programming over the Internet to a PC or Mac, smartphone or tablet, using Sling’s SlingPlayer software. If you want to watch the streamed content at the other house on your TV screen, you can either beam it from a mobile device to the TV via a Roku or Apple TV, or purchase a small set-top box from one of several companies, like Western Digital, which build in the SlingPlayer software.

Q:

In my work I often visit places that don’t allow camera phones for security reasons. I currently have a BlackBerry Torch without a camera. I would like to upgrade to an iPhone or Android device. Do any of these type of phones come without a camera?

A:

There are no iPhones sold without cameras. And all of the best-known Android phones have cameras. However, I did a quick search for “android phone without camera” and found a handful, mostly sold in Asia. I haven’t tested any Android phones in the U.S. without cameras, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I also noticed an article about iPhones sold in Singapore, for use on military bases, that have been modified by removing the camera lens.

If I bought the Republic Wireless phone you reviewed last week, would I be able to make calls overseas without paying the usual exorbitant roaming fees the big carriers charge, as long as I was in Wi-Fi range?

A:

Yes indeed, according to the company. The Motorola Moto X sold by Republic is a modified version that defaults to making calls and sending texts via Wi-Fi and only relies on cellular networks in the U.S. when Wi-Fi is too weak or unavailable. So, the company says Wi-Fi calls to and from the U.S. from anywhere in the world are covered in each of its four calling plans, without the need for a special Internet-calling app. However, if you aren’t in Wi-Fi range, you’re out of luck: Republic says it doesn’t offer international cellular service.

If you’re thinking of getting someone a new, name-brand tablet for the holidays, but blanch at spending base prices of $229, $399 or $499, Dell is hoping you’ll look its way. The computer giant, battling an industrywide slump in PC sales, is once again making a push into tablets and one of its weapons is low pricing.

Dell has had little success in tablets. But it introduced this fall a family of four Android and Windows-based slates called Venue models. I took a close look at one model, the 7-inch Venue 7, which, at $150, is the least expensive new major-label tablet I’ve seen at the standard 16-gigabyte base memory level. (There are a few year-old models, or models with less memory that cost somewhat less.)

To understand how low $150 is for a name-brand, 16-gigabyte tablet, consider that the market-leading Apple iPads start at $499 for the 9.7-inch iPad Air; and $399 for the iPad Mini with a 7.9-inch Retina display. Even the latest 7-inch models from Google and Amazon, known for aggressive pricing, start at $229.

In fact, mostly because they adopted better screens, the 2013 models of the iPad Mini, Google Nexus 7 and top-of-the-line 7-inch Kindle Fire actually rose in price from the 2012 models.

So, what exactly do you get from a $150 name-brand tablet?

The answer: You get a lower-quality device with weak battery life, which might suffice for a first-time tablet buyer with a tight budget.

The Venue 7 is a relatively chunky black plastic tablet running Google’s Android operating system, that’s available via Dell’s online store. It operates over Wi-Fi only, though a cellular version is planned for next year. It cannot be ordered with more internal memory than 16 gigabytes, but it has a slot for a memory expansion card.

This tablet has a big brother, the Android-powered Venue 8, with similar specs, that starts at $180, still a good price.

On the plus side, I found the Dell Venue 7 to be fast enough not to be annoying. Common apps like Gmail, the Chrome browser, the Kindle reading app, Google Maps, Twitter and Facebook all worked fine for me. Videos played smoothly.

But buyers of this tablet aren’t getting the latest or best technology.

The processor, an Intel Atom, and the version of Android used, Jelly Bean 4.2.2, are last-generation editions, though Dell says it hopes to offer an upgrade to the latest version of Android next year.

Screen resolution, at 1280×800, is also more characteristic of prior models of competing tablets. It’s no match for the resolution on the latest small tablets from Apple, Google and Amazon.

Also while the Venue 7’s screen was responsive, I was annoyed by a slight pebbly look, especially in white areas, at some angles.

The Venue 7 is thicker and heavier than leading 7-inch competitors like the latest Google Nexus 7 or Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX. And while it’s a bit lighter than the new iPad Mini, which has a much larger screen area, it’s about 30% thicker.

The Dell’s rear camera, at just 3 megapixels, took truly mediocre, even fuzzy, pictures, indoors and out.

In my tough battery test, where I play videos back to back at 75% brightness, with power-saving features turned off and Wi-Fi on to collect email in the background, the Venue 7 lasted 5 hours and 29 minutes. That was less than half the battery life of the iPad Mini; two hours less than the last 7-inch Kindle Fire; and half an hour less than the latest Nexus 7.

Finally, there’s workmanship. This is an admittedly subjective area, but the Venue 7 felt a bit flimsy to me, especially around the longer edges of the screen. There seemed too much “give” where these edges connected to the case, and in a few cases, I could even hear a popping sound when I pressed on the case near the screen edge.

To be sure I wasn’t imagining things, I asked two other people who own tablets to check this out separately, and they agreed.

I want to stress that no amount of pressing on the screen edge seemed to degrade either the performance or the appearance of the device, but neither did it leave me feeling that the Venue 7 was as solid as its competitors. And I wondered how it would hold up to a child’s care and handling.

Dell says this is a deliberate design feature, created to make it easier for the back of the device to be removed for service or other purposes by qualified technicians. It stresses the “give” at the edge of the screen doesn’t affect functionality.

Bottom line: If you can spare more money, you’ll get a better experience and more longevity in a competing small tablet. But if you can’t, the Dell Venue 7 is a heck of a buy for an Android tablet from a brand-name company.

I think we may have goofed. We bought a tablet that claims to be “Wi-Fi only.” Can it be activated to handle 4G cellular data?

A:

It’s highly unlikely. To use cellular data, a tablet needs extra chips, antennas, and other hardware and software, similar to what a smartphone includes. If it says “Wi-Fi only,” that very likely means it lacks this hardware.

In fact, if you compare the specs on, say, an iPad, or a Google Nexus 7 tablet, you’ll see that not only are the prices higher for the 4G cellular versions, but they weigh slightly more, to accommodate the cellular gear.

Q:

I am trying to monitor my teenagers’ iPhones. I bought an app called PhoneSheriff based upon good reviews. However when I went to install it, it says to ensure the targeted iPhone is “Jailbroken.” I believe this will void the Apple warranties. Is there anything I can do to monitor my teenagers’ iPhones without jailbreaking?

A:

There’s an app called TeenSafe that claims to be the only monitoring system for iPhones that doesn’t require that the target phone be jailbroken, which essentially means hacking the phone to accept apps that Apple hasn’t approved.

It apparently works via the Web, and relies on your knowing your children’s Apple IDs and passwords (presumably, even if they change). I haven’t tested or reviewed the app, so I can’t recommend it.

What if you could get a top-tier, current-model smartphone with all the bells and whistles, and pay between $5 and $40 a month for unlimited voice, text and data? And there’s no contract required.

Well, you can if you sign up with an innovative carrier called Republic Wireless. Republic’s secret is it modifies brand-name phones so they place voice calls and send texts over Wi-Fi instead of more expensive cellular networks. That lets the company charge less per month and forgo contracts. And now it offers a top-tier phone, the Moto X from Motorola.

When Wi-Fi is absent or too weak, Republic’s phones switch to Sprint’s cellular network for calling and texting. Cellular calls and texts don’t cost extra. If you start a call via Wi-Fi and keep talking as you leave Wi-Fi range, the call switches over to cellular.

Most other smartphones can make Wi-Fi calls, but these typically require an app. Republic modifies the phone’s main dialer and texting functions to work over Wi-Fi whenever possible. You don’t have to do anything special to initiate a Wi-Fi call or text.

Republic lets users change plans right on the phone twice a month.

Republic has been in business about a year, but its first offering had several drawbacks. First, it worked only with a clunky, limited phone, the Motorola Defy XT, which had skimpy memory, a small, low-res screen, and only the older 3G cellular data network. Second, call quality over Wi-Fi was iffy, with audible echoes and some clipped words. Third, the handover between Wi-Fi and cellular was clumsy. The phone had to hang up the Wi-Fi call and redial over cellular.

Now, all that has changed. I’ve been testing Republic’s latest, improved service on the Moto X, and it has solved all three problems. There are still a couple of drawbacks, but I can recommend it as an option for people who want to save on monthly bills and don’t mind being limited to a choice of a single modern Android phone.

The first improvement is the Moto X, which came out in August. The Google-owned handset maker’s premier model has a vivid, 4.7-inch screen, fast 4G LTE data capability, and 16 gigabytes of memory.

Second, I found call quality over Wi-Fi to be very good. I heard no echoes or clipped words, and everyone with whom I tested it said the Wi-Fi and cellular calls were indistinguishable.

Third, handing off calls between Wi-Fi and cellular networks is now truly seamless. Neither I nor the people with whom I was speaking could detect the millisecond pause when I left Wi-Fi range and the calls switched to Sprint.

I used Republic’s modified Moto X in my home, in several Starbucks shops, and in a few other public Wi-Fi locations. All of the calls worked fine, as did the handover as I kept talking while walking out of Wi-Fi range. My only glitch came at one of the Starbucks, where the phone had trouble with the Wi-Fi and it took several tries to connect.

Battery life was decent: The phone lasted a full day on a single charge.

Republic charges $299 for this Wi-Fi-centric Moto X. That’s much more than what traditional carriers charge with a contract. AT&T sells the same phone for $50 with a two-year contract.

But Republic’s price is considerably less than the no-contract price carriers offer. Without a contract commitment, Sprint charges $550 for the Moto X.

If you’re willing to pay more upfront, your monthly fees are much lower with Republic. The upstart carrier offers four service plans for the Moto X. The first is just $5 a month for unlimited calls, text and data over Wi-Fi only. Under this plan, the phone can’t be used out of Wi-Fi coverage. The next plan, for $10 a month, gives you unlimited talk and text on both Wi-Fi and Sprint cellular, but only data on Wi-Fi, not cellular.

The third, and most popular, plan, costs $25 a month for unlimited talk, text, and data on both Wi-Fi and 3G cellular. Finally, for $40 a month, you get unlimited talk, text, and data on both Wi-Fi and 4G LTE cellular.

Over time, these lower monthly fees can more than offset the higher cost of the phone. Sprint says unlimited talk, text and data on its network is at least $80 a month for the unsubsidized Moto X.

And Republic offers another cool feature: Twice a month, you can change plans right on the phone, and the new fees will be pro-rated for the remaining days in the month. So if you opted for the $5 Wi-Fi-only plan, but you now need cellular coverage, you could switch on the fly to a cellular plan.

Republic is also planning to offer a feature that lets you change your phone number via its app on the phone.

For the increasing number of people who are in Wi-Fi coverage most of the day, Republic Wireless might well make sense.

Republic says it errs on the side of caution when placing calls. It will use cellular, which costs it more, if it judges the available Wi-Fi to be too unreliable for a good call. And it doesn’t try to switch you back to Wi-Fi if you start a call on cellular.

So what are the drawbacks? For one thing, you can’t order the Moto X in colors, as you can with other carriers. And the Republic’s Moto X can’t be switched to other carriers, even Sprint, because it has been modified.

Also, Republic has very limited customer service and relies mainly on its users to help other customers through online forums.

Overall, however, Republic is offering a clever, modern service on a good smartphone, and is showing that Wi-Fi calls can be as good as cellular ones.

My wife started reading e-books downloaded from the library on her iPad 2. Indoors the print is very readable, but it loses some of the sharpness in bright light. Some of her friends suggested the Kindle Paperwhite as a better reader in all types of light. What is your opinion?

A:

All current color tablets use a screen technology that washes out in sunlight and can become almost unreadable in direct, bright sunlight. The Kindle monochrome e-readers, including the Paperwhite, use a different technology that does well in all kinds of light. However, I have never noticed any degradation of screen readability on iPads or other quality color tablets in bright indoor light.

Q:

Is it fair to say that the iPad Air, like its predecessors, is designed more for content consumption than content creation, and that someone who really needs a computer but also wants a tablet (and can’t afford both) would do better with something like the new Surface?

A:

The iPad can be a fine productivity and creativity tool, with or without an accessory keyboard, depending on the app you are using. Business email and calendars, or the editing of office documents, work fine on the iPad, as do many drawing applications. You can even sign legal documents on it electronically. However, if you are looking for all the functions of a PC, a full Windows 8 tablet like the Surface 2 Pro would be a better choice, because it runs all the programs a Windows computer does.

Q:

In the new Mac OS X operating system, Mavericks, it appears it is not possible to sync Notes, Contacts and other data using iTunes via a cable connection. Is this true?

A:

Yes. Apple says: “In Mavericks, OS X syncs Contacts, Calendars and Notes using iCloud.” (That’s Apple’s Internet cloud service.) The company adds that, if you make changes to your data and don’t have access to the Internet, OS X will sync the data the next time an Internet connection is available.

In the market for high-quality wireless speakers that stream music digitally, Sonos has been a gold standard. Its products produce sterling sound, need no wiring or professional installation and are controlled by apps on computers, tablets and smartphones. They can be used alone, or several can be networked together to form a whole-house system.

But Sonos products have been relatively expensive, ranging between $300 and $700 for a single speaker, plus $50 for a “bridge” device that plugs into your home Internet router to make the speakers’ wireless network function. And its speakers have typically been large and heavy.

Now, the Santa Barbara, Calif., company has come out with a lower-priced, smaller model that preserves its quality sound and its modular, wireless connection system. Like its larger siblings, it works with a handsome Sonos app on Macs, PCs, iPhones, iPads and Android phones and tablets to stream music either from those devices, or from the cloud via services like Pandora, Amazon and Spotify.

I’ve been testing the new $199 Sonos Play:1 and I really like it, despite a couple of downsides that Sonos is working on fixing. I found it easy to set up and use. I loved the crisp, rich sound it produced, which easily filled a large room without being at maximum volume. Sonos is even throwing in the bridge device free with the Play:1.

Like older Sonos speakers, the Sonos Play:1 plays music from computers, tablets and phones, but is more portable.

I was able to tuck away a Play:1 almost out of sight and still enjoy great sound in my large family room. I was able to combine two speakers in a single room as a paired stereo set. I was able to set up three of them in my house and either play the same song on all of them, or separate songs and playlists on each. I controlled it from computers, tablets and phones.

While the Play:1 isn’t meant to be a fully portable device and must be plugged into an electrical outlet, it’s small enough to be toted to another room occasionally. It weighs 4 pounds and is about 6 inches tall and under 5 inches wide and deep. It’s the first Sonos speaker with a play/pause button, because it’s small enough that it might be in reach on, say, a desktop or kitchen counter.

What’s the difference between the Sonos wireless speakers and smaller, battery-powered speakers for digital devices that use Bluetooth?

Its app lets you set up multiple units, with each playing different music.

These latter products are best thought of as wirelessly tethered amplifiers for smartphones and tablets. They produce good sound, but won’t work if the digital device to which they are tethered moves out of the short range of Bluetooth.

The Sonos units, such as the new Play:1, don’t rely on the device that runs the Sonos app for their Internet connection. They use their own special network to connect to the Internet. That means if you’re using an Internet source like Pandora, a Sonos speaker can keep on pumping out music long after the phone or tablet or laptop used to start the process has left the room, or the house.

If you are playing music stored on a portable device, Sonos won’t be able to keep playing the music for long after you move the device out of range. However, its range is much greater than that of a Bluetooth device. I was easily able to stream music stored on an iPad to a Sonos on another floor.

Finally, the sound from the Play:1 is much, much richer than anything I’ve heard from a portable Bluetooth speaker. Though it’s likely audiophiles will find it less impressive than the larger Sonos models. I was surprised at the good bass from such a small unit and thought the high notes and vocals were quite crisp. I am no audio expert, but the little Play:1 sounded better and stronger than some much larger speakers I’ve owned.

To set up one or more Play:1 units, you first plug the bridge accessory into your router. The bridge is a small box that emits no sound but merely sets up the Sonos wireless network (which is separate from your regular Wi-Fi network and wholly dedicated to the speakers).

The play/pause button on the Play:1.

Then you download and fire up the free app on the device of your choice — a small tablet is ideal — and briefly hold down two buttons on the top of the speaker. It gets recognized and added to the left side of the app, along with any other Play:1 units or other Sonos speakers you have.

The app lets you choose to Queue up (or immediately play) your personal music from a mobile device; play music stored on a networked computer or hard disk; or music streamed from Web services like Pandora, Spotify, Rhapsody, Amazon and more. You can also stream radio stations and podcasts. You use the app to group and ungroup multiple Play:1 speakers so they play the same or different audio, or to set them up as a stereo pair.

The app lets you set up combined playlists and favorites from multiple sources — say, songs from your PC, plus a Pandora station or a streamed FM station from your hometown. It also sets sleep timers and alarms for the speakers.

I did find some glitches with my Play:1 test units. For one thing, there was a conflict between the Sonos network and the very latest versions of Apple’s wireless routers, which I happen to have recently bought. Sonos helped me resolve this, but be warned if you own these new routers, the conflict may shut down your home Wi-Fi network.

For another, on the iPad, I ran into a bug Sonos plans to fix where its app falsely claims it has lost connection with a speaker and can’t play a track, even though the track keeps on playing just fine.

Overall, Sonos has finally democratized its quality product line with a more affordable, and smaller, but still very good, wireless speaker.

As smartphone usage has surged, so has the demand for reliable, fast cellular data. Sure, your smartphone can use Wi-Fi to surf the Web, watch video, stream music and download documents. But Wi-Fi isn’t always available or costs extra in some public places.

In the U.S., the fast cellular technology of choice is called 4G LTE. The 4G just means we’re on the fourth generation of cellular data systems and LTE stands for Long Term Evolution, which is the fastest and most consistent form of 4G cellular data. It’s the one that U.S. wireless carriers are competing to offer in as many cities as possible, as quickly as possible.

Verizon Wireless got the jump on deploying LTE and I reported my first tests of its nascent service in January 2011. But now AT&T claims it has almost caught up, and Sprint and T-Mobile are racing to build out their LTE networks.

So I decided to test the availability and speed of the four major U.S. carriers’ LTE coverage in three metro areas where I happened to be in the past month or so. I focused on download speeds because the average consumer is still downloading much more than uploading.

Please note that this wasn’t a scientific test. I didn’t drive the nation in a van jammed with technical gear. I toted around four versions of a major LTE smartphone that supports all four carriers—the iPhone 5S—and ran the same speed test in the same places, 20 times per phone per location. Then I averaged the readings and ranked the results. And I didn’t go into pricing because the companies tend to have pricing plans that are too confusing to lay out in detail here.

Note that, while LTE connections can peak at rates of well over 40 megabits per second, a good average LTE speed is somewhere between 10 and 20 mbps, though the carriers typically promise lower speeds, if they make promises at all. The average speed of a landline Internet connection in the U.S. in the second quarter of this year was 8.7 mbps, according to Internet provider Akamai.

I did the tests in three places. One was my home in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. The second was a hotel in midtown Manhattan, near Times Square. The third was a hotel in the heart of Silicon Valley.

The winner, for the first time in any test I’ve run, was AT&T, with an average speed of about 19.7 megabits per second. But AT&T’s victory was secured mainly because of a stupendous performance in New York City, where it dominated its rivals with a stunning average speed of 34.8 mbps.

It was the slowest in my Silicon Valley test and ranked third in the D.C. suburbs. AT&T says it doesn’t promise any range of speeds to its customers.

Verizon Wireless came in second, averaging 16.7 mbps, well above its promised range of 5 to 12 mbps. Verizon wasn’t No. 1 in any of the test locations, but it was the most consistent performer, clustering between 15 and 18.6 mbps.

In each city, my T-Mobile iPhone took longer to find an LTE network than the others, but it did quite respectably, with an average score of about 13.5 mbps, well within its wide promised range of between 6 and 20 mbps. T-Mobile won my test in the D.C. suburbs, with a speed of around 19.5 mbps.

Sprint proved the most problematic. Its overall average was the lowest, at about 10.4 mbps and that was only because it won my Silicon Valley test with a speed of 20.7 mbps. In the other two cities, I had to leave my main testing location to search within a small radius to get a Sprint LTE signal, and the results were by far the worst in those places.

Sprint says its network is still wanting in some places because it is trying to replace technology while customers are still using the network.

Sprint has a new variation on LTE called Sprint Spark that it claims could “surpass the entire U.S. industry in speed capability in 2016.” But the company says in the near future Sprint Spark will only be available on a few phones and in limited portions of five cities, so it wasn’t part of this test.

You may get different outcomes with your phones and services. Locations, times of day, levels of network congestion, phone models and other factors all can affect speeds. Even in my limited tests, I saw big swings. Some of you may not even get LTE at all where you live, typically in rural America.

A good LTE connection should allow you to use your phone (or tablet) to comfortably stream movies and music, peruse large documents in the cloud, surf the Web quickly, traverse social networks with no slowdown, and get email effortlessly, as if you were at home with a good landline connection.

The main conclusion I draw from this exercise is that decent LTE speed isn’t just limited to Verizon anymore, and that’s a good thing.

Corrections & Amplifications

Download speeds for the four main U.S. cellphone carriers’ LTE services in three major U.S. metro areas range from about four to about 35 megabits per second. An earlier version of a graphic in this article incorrectly gave the speeds in thousands of megabits per second. The graphic has been corrected.

There are so many devices based on Google’s Android operating system that it’s hard to keep track of them all. But each year Google works with a hardware maker to produce a “best of Android” phone and tablet, called the Nexus models, which are often used to launch a new version of the OS and to strip away the quirks and variations other makers and carriers layer on top of Android.

I’ve been testing the latest of these Google-designed phones, the Nexus 5 made by LG of South Korea, and the newest version of Android, called KitKat, or Android 4.4. I like both, though neither is an especially bold leap forward in features. They are mainly designed to do two things: To integrate Google’s own features and services even more deeply into Android, and to lower the price of phones capable of running the latest version of Android.

The Nexus 5 is designed to offer robust hardware specs to buyers of premium phones at a much lower unsubsidized price than market leaders Apple and Samsung charge for their top-of-the-line models. It starts at $349 for an unsubsidized, unlocked, 16 gigabyte model — about $300 less than what a similarly unsubsidized, full-price, iPhone 5s or Samsung Galaxy S4 costs.

The new Nexus 5 has a larger, higher-resolution screen than the Nexus 4 but is thinner and lighter than its predecessor.

Its biggest advantage over its predecessor, the Nexus 4, is that it supports LTE, the fastest and most robust cellular data network that is most widely used in the U.S. Its biggest downside is that, ironically, it won’t work on Verizon, which has been the leader in deploying LTE.

KitKat, which will appear on other Android phones, has been engineered under the hood so it can run on much lower-priced, lower-powered phones, especially in emerging markets. KitKat was designed to demand much less memory. (Google is using the name by striking a marketing agreement with the candy bar’s owner, Nestlé and its U.S. maker, Hershey.)

Google hopes this re-engineering will gradually ease the fragmentation of Android, in which most devices use different versions of the OS and only a minority run the latest version. This fragmentation, which is in contrast to Apple’s devices, often deters app developers from launching their software on Android first, despite Android’s much larger market share. It’s much simpler to develop for the more unified Apple platform.

Nexus 5

The new Nexus 5 has a larger, higher-resolution screen than the Nexus 4, but manages to be thinner and lighter. The screen is just under 5 inches, versus 4.7 inches for last year’s model. It is substantially larger, thicker and heavier than the iPhone 5s, but the iPhone has a smaller, lower-resolution screen.

The plastic Nexus 5 felt very comfortable in the hand, especially for a large-screen phone. This was partly due to a soft, rubbery back. The speaker, which was poor on the last model, is much better on this one. Calls were quite crisp and clear.

The Nexus 5, which I tested on T-Mobile’s LTE network, got fast cellular speeds, similar to those on the latest iPhone, and much better than those I get on the Nexus 4. But I found its Wi-Fi speeds, while good, fell short of those on the latest Samsung and Apple devices. I didn’t do a formal battery test, but the battery appeared to last a full day.

The Nexus 5 will be sold directly by Google, and by Sprint and T-Mobile. It won’t be sold by AT&T, but will work with an AT&T SIM card, according to Google. To make it compatible with Verizon’s network, Google says it would have had to make a special model and chose not to do so. This is a big minus.

The screen was clear and sharp, though a little dimmer than on some competing high-end phones. Touch was very responsive and the device was speedy.

This new phone has several key new features.

Recent callers are first in a favorite callers list.

Like the Moto X, from Google-owned Motorola, it accepts voice commands without requiring you to first tap an icon or button. You just say “Okay Google,” and it performs a search or answers a question. This worked most, but not all, of the time.

You can now get to the Google Now predictive intelligence feature, which gives you the weather, sports scores, commuting times and more, by simply swiping right on the home screen.

The camera has now been improved to allow in more light, and has an advanced feature called HDR+, which improves on the common HDR feature in other phones by taking more quick shots to try and get the best one. There’s also a small gyroscope built in to help stabilize shaky images.

I was underwhelmed by the Nexus 5 camera and didn’t find it a match for the latest iPhone camera. The pictures from the Nexus 5 were generally good, but not great, especially indoors. Details didn’t pop and in one or two cases, images were a bit blurry.

The phone app draws on Google Maps for caller ID info on a business that isn’t a contact.

KitKat

While the primary goal of KitKat was to run in a much smaller amount of memory, it has a few notable new features. The phone app now places recent and frequent callers first in its favorite callers list and de-emphasizes the full list of contacts and the dialer keypad. When you search for a contact, it will also return results for nearby places and businesses, which you formerly had to look for in Google Maps or other apps.

The phone app also tries to provide caller ID info when a local business that isn’t in your contacts list calls you, drawing on information from Google Maps.

Text messages now appear in Google’s proprietary messaging app, Hangouts, much the way Apple earlier unified text messages with its own proprietary messaging app, iMessage.

And, in another catch-up with Apple, KitKat has the built-in ability to act as a pedometer, though this requires special hardware, so far only available with the Nexus 5. Fitness apps must be rewritten to use this feature.

KitKat is also somewhat smoother and faster than its predecessor, Jelly Bean, at least on the Nexus 5. All of these KitKat features worked fine, but none was a huge deal to me.

Nexus 5 is the best Nexus phone I’ve tested. But the phone and its software are designed more to bolster Google features and global Android dominance than to wow sophisticated users.

Thanks for explaining how to use the new-style Intel Inside sticker to find a laptop with the latest Intel chip. But what if I’m shopping online, where they usually don’t show the sticker?

A:

Besides the sticker, there are two ways to tell if the PC or Mac you are considering has the latest Intel Core processor, which boosts battery life. One is to look for the words “Fourth Generation” or “4th gen” or even “Haswell” (the chip’s code name) in the description of the processor. The other is to check what Intel calls the processor number, which follows the chip’s name, to make sure it starts with the number 4. One example might be Intel Core i5 — 4300M.

Q:

Apple’s iTunes Genius feature is getting on my nerves, because, when I sync my device, it takes up time syncing “Genius data.” What does Genius do and how can I turn it off?

A:

Genius is a free, optional feature that can create mixes or playlists based on songs in your music library. The data that is synced is used to update the playlist-creation algorithms about changes to your library. If you don’t use Genius or like it, you can turn it off by going to iTunes on your computer, selecting the Store menu, and clicking on “Turn Off Genius.” Note: These menu items won’t be available if you use iTunes Match, a separate, paid service that stores your music in the cloud.

Q:

I need a new laptop and I want Windows, but I don’t want to get one with Windows 8, or Windows 8.1. Is it still possible to buy a laptop with Windows 7?

A:

Yes. They are getting scarcer, but you can find them at both stores and online. I saw a few in a Micro Center chain store about 10 days ago. Checking on the chain’s website, I see more, from $350 to over $1,000. But many listings indicate a limited number remain in stock.

One reason for the phenomenal success of the iPad has been Apple’s ability to pack speed and versatility into a thin, light body with long battery life. It doesn’t do everything a laptop does, but for many common scenarios, it has replaced the laptop as its owners’ go-to device. That’s why the company has sold 170 million iPads in just 3½ years.

Now, Apple is raising the bar. On Friday, it plans to start selling its fifth-generation full-size model, called the iPad Air, and this one significantly extends the iPad’s advantages, at the same $499 base price of its predecessor. In a feat of design and engineering, Apple has slashed the iPad’s weight by 28 percent, made it 20 percent thinner and 9 percent narrower, while increasing its speed and retaining the brilliant, 9.7-inch Retina display.

The new iPad weighs just 1 pound, down from 1.4 pounds for the previous top-of-the-line model, the iPad 4, which is being discontinued.

And it has done all this while maintaining the iPad’s industry-leading battery life. In my tests, the iPad Air far exceeded Apple’s claim of 10 hours of battery life. For more than 12 hours, it played high-definition videos, nonstop, with the screen at 75 percent brightness, with Wi-Fi on and emails pouring in. That’s the best battery life I’ve ever recorded for any tablet.

The iPad Air, right, is 0.29 inch thick, compared with the iPad 4, left, which is 0.37 inch thick.

I’ve been testing the iPad Air for about a week and found it a pleasure to use. This new iPad isn’t a radical rethinking of what a tablet can be, but it’s a major improvement on a successful product. It is the best tablet I’ve ever reviewed.

That isn’t just because of its slimmer, lighter design, but because Apple boasts 475,000 apps optimized for tablet use — far more than any other tablet platform. (The iPad also can run all of the million or so apps available for the iPhone.) By contrast, the vast majority of apps available for rival Android tablets are just stretched versions of phone apps.

In addition to the new iPad Air, in late November Apple will introduce a new version of its popular smaller tablet, the iPad mini. This second version of the mini will gain the ultrasharp Retina display, with the same number of pixels as its big brother, packed into its smaller, 7.9-inch screen. It is slightly thicker and heavier than the first mini and its base price will rise to $399 from $329. It runs all the same apps as the iPad Air.

I was only able to use the upcoming mini briefly, at Apple’s launch event, and found that, like its predecessor, I was able to jam it into the back pocket of my jeans securely. It isn’t as easy to carry as competing Android models with 7-inch screens, but it works fine one-handed and Apple claims it has up to 40 percent more screen real estate.

These latest iPads do have some downsides. They are pricier than many competitors. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 can be bought starting at $360. Dell has just introduced a new small tablet, the Venue 7, for $150.

And iPads can get even more costly once you start adding features, because Apple charges hefty prices for extras like cellular connectivity and more storage. A fully tricked-out iPad Air, with both Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity and the maximum 128 gigabytes of storage (up from 16 gigabytes in the base model) will set you back $929.

But Apple has taken some steps to offer iPads for less than in the past. It is continuing to offer the original iPad mini at a reduced base price of $299. And it will sell the 2011-vintage iPad 2 at a base of $399. These models have non-Retina displays and older processors.

Also, unlike some of its competitors, Apple isn’t introducing official accessories to the iPad to enhance productivity and creativity. Unlike Microsoft’s Surface tablets, the iPad lacks a manufacturer-made snap-on keyboard. And unlike Samsung’s Galaxy Note tablets, it doesn’t come with a stylus or built-in apps that can use it.

Apple says it opted not to add these things because many third-party hardware makers produce keyboards, keyboard cases and styli for the iPad. And the company did take steps to enhance productivity and creativity via software by making redesigned versions of its iWork office suite and its iLife creativity suite free with newly purchased iPads.

I found the iPad Air to be much more comfortable to hold for long periods than the last two, heavier models. And I found it to be noticeably faster than prior iPads. Apple claims it offers up to twice the speed of past models. It attributes that to a new processor, of its own design, called the A7, which also will be in the new Mini. This processor, like most PC processors, is what’s called a 64-bit chip, which means it can handle data in bigger chunks.

Wi-Fi is improved with two antennas instead of one. The iPad Air repeatedly recorded higher Internet speeds than its predecessors, essentially matching the Internet speed of my laptops.

Smaller improvements have been made to the cameras, especially the front camera most commonly used for video chats. And the iPad now has two microphones instead of one.

The battery performance of the iPad Air simply blew me away. In my tough tablet battery test, where I disable automatic screen dimming and other power-saving features, and combine video playback from the device’s memory with leaving Wi-Fi on and email working at normal settings, the iPad has almost always met its claims and beat competitors by a wide margin.

But this new iPad Air just kept going, clocking a battery life of 12 hours and 13 minutes, which exceeded Apple’s claim by more than 20 percent. The company says its A7 chip, combined with the fact it controls its own operating system, gives the new iPad the ability to tailor under-the-hood processes so unneeded drains on the battery can be minimized.

Bottom line: If you can afford it, the new iPad Air is the tablet I recommend, hands down.

I was surprised to see updates for some of my favorite apps say they can access my camera to take pictures or video at any time without my permission. Can they really take pictures or video from my camera?

A:

I wouldn’t use any app that could trigger the camera without your knowledge or at least implied consent each time. An app might legitimately be using the camera for tasks like scanning bar codes or business cards. But even so, it should be obvious and allow you to decide what to do. And if the app is one that should never need the camera, but says it wants to do so, don’t use it.

Apple says it flags and rejects apps that use the camera without stating that the camera is part of the app’s functionality. Google doesn’t curate apps in advance and apps’ disclosures are generally stated all at once in a dense page at download.

Q:

I like the TV on at night, which drives my wife crazy. Is there a device that would attach to the TV and use Bluetooth to wirelessly send the audio to a set of earbuds so the main speakers could be muted?

A:

You can buy these either as just a transmitter or as a set that includes headphones — though I haven’t tested any of them and can’t recommend a model. One example is the Clear Sounds CLS-CS-Qlink Stereo TV Transmitter, which sells for $41 on Amazon. But be aware that with this or similar products, you may need an added-cost cable adapter to fit your TV’s audio-out jacks.

There’s good news for laptop buyers in my fall guide this time: The confusing changes in the sagging laptop industry have settled down enough that if you need one, now may be the time to buy one.

Microsoft and Apple are launching tweaked versions of their operating systems, but they aren’t radical changes this time that require a lot of new learning. And Intel has introduced new processors, which greatly enhance laptop battery life on both Windows and Mac models.

While prices of touchscreen Windows 8 laptops can still surge above $1,000, especially for the thinnest models, they seem to have eased a bit and you can find plenty of choices between $600 and $900. The stores have stopped pushing most of the clumsier tablet-laptop hybrids.

Let me be clear: If you found Windows 8 with its dual user interfaces confusing, you still will. The new, modified version called Windows 8.1 is built on the same fundamental design. And Microsoft is still putting most of its emphasis on the tabletlike Start screen, which works best with a touchscreen and much better on a tablet than on a laptop.

But in a concession to rebellious users, the company has made it possible to bypass the Start screen at startup and go right to the familiar Windows desktop — provided you can find the buried setting that permits this.

So here are some tips on what to look for in a laptop this fall. As always, this guide is meant for average users doing typical tasks, not corporate IT staffs, or people doing heavy-duty work like video production.

With Intel’s new processors, Apple’s MacBook Air lasted more than 10 hours in one test.

Processors

If you care about battery life in a laptop, look for what Intel calls its 4th Generation Core processors. Back in June, when I tested one of the first laptops to adopt this chip—Apple’s MacBook Air—it racked up a 65% gain in battery life and lasted over 10 hours on a single charge in my harsh battery test. A paper-thin Sony running Windows 8 lasted nearly six hours.

It can be hard to tell which laptops have these new processors since they are still named Core i3, i5 and i7, just like the last generation. Look for a redesigned “Intel Inside” sticker on the laptop.

Sony’s Sony Vaio Pro 13 ultrabook lasted nearly six hours in a test.

Models with the new, battery-boosting chips have a more vertical blue sticker with a gold band across the top edge, as opposed to the older horizontal sticker with a gold band in the middle. Typical users should choose an i5 version.

Windows vs. Mac

Unlike Windows vendors, Apple has stuck with standard screens and built its many touch gestures into the large, smooth-running touch pads on its MacBooks.

Laptops that contort into a tablet using special hinges and slide mechanisms tend to make for thick and heavy tablets.

As always, Macs aren’t the cheapest laptops, starting at $999. And they only come in two lines, the thinner, lighter MacBook Air and the beefier MacBook Pro.

If you prefer Windows 8, are looking for variety, or are on a budget, you want a Windows laptop.

But the Macs are excellent, reliable, versatile products and far less susceptible to viruses than Windows PCs. Apple is using the new 4th Generation Intel processors.

The company has a new version of its operating system, called Mavericks, which claims greater speed, improvements to the built-in apps and Mac versions of two iPhone and iPad apps: iBooks and Maps.

Touchscreens

You no longer need to buy a touchscreen laptop to get the most out of a Windows 8 laptop. Windows 8.1 allows you to boot directly into the familiar desktop, which is best used with a keyboard and mouse. And the mouse and keyboard will work for the touch-centric parts of Windows.

If you expect to spend a lot of time in the Start screen and the tabletlike apps that live there, I advise using a touchscreen.

Tablets vs. Laptops

Tablets are taking over many of the tasks, including word processing, that were formerly commonly done on laptops. If your laptop is doing fine and you want a new device, it’s worth considering a quality tablet like an iPad or a name-brand Android model. Apple brought out new, faster iPad models Tuesday.

Convertibles

These combo laptops, which attempt to contort into a tablet using special hinges and slide mechanisms, seem to be fading. I don’t recommend them because they tend to make for thick, heavy tablets.

The Asus Transformer Book T100 is a 10-inch tablet running full Windows 8.1 that snaps into a laptop keyboard.

Detachables

On the other hand, I do like the idea of Windows 8 laptops in which the screen can be removed and used as a tablet. These machines, called detachables, are getting better and less expensive.

One interesting model I tried briefly — but did not thoroughly test — is the Asus Transformer Book T100, which starts at $349. It’s a 10-inch tablet running full Windows 8.1 that snaps into a laptop keyboard.

Machines with Intel’s 4th Generation Core processors have a sticker with a gold band at the top, not the middle.

Price

You can still buy Windows laptops for as little as $250 or $300, but I don’t recommend it because they tend to use old or lower-quality components.

A good midrange price is around $500 to $700. Touchscreen models and those with the latest processors, or the thinnest and lightest bodies, run highest.

Bottom Line

It’s safe to buy a laptop again. Just pay attention to those Intel stickers.

I’m a former BlackBerry user who has been struggling with the virtual keyboard on his Droid for years. I considered the new BlackBerry, whose virtual keyboard you praised, but want a phone supported by more app developers. I would appreciate your advice on which keyboard app is easiest to operate now.

A:

The keyboard app I personally find best on Android is called SwiftKey, which replaces the stock keyboard on Android wherever it appears. It does a particularly good job of learning your writing habits and predicting what word is likeliest to come next. It can even sync these personal predictions across your Android devices.

Q:

With iGoogle going away in a few weeks, what is your recommendation on a good replacement site?

A:

There are a number of sites which, like iGoogle, aim to be your browser’s home page, consolidating personalized selections of news, weather, sports, stocks, calendar, search and more. My personal choice would be My Yahoo, which even has instructions for importing your settings from iGoogle. To find others, do a search for “iGoogle replacements.”

Q:

I don’t like the redesigned calendar app in Apple’s iOS 7 for my iPad. Is there a way to restore the old calendar?

A:

Not that I know of, but there are many alternative calendar apps for iPads and iPhones, which can be found in the app store by searching for “calendar.”

While you can buy a $500 iPad at Amazon.com with a single click, sending even small amounts of cash to a friend or relative is still often a tedious and slow task. In most cases, you wind up doing exactly what you would have in 1957 — writing a check and mailing it. The recipient then has to cash it or deposit it in her bank account.

An app, available for Apple and Android devices, lets you enter an amount and create email to send.

But starting Tuesday, you can just email cash, free of charge, directly from your debit card to anyone else’s, regardless of what bank each party uses. There’s no login or password to remember and no special software or hardware required — you just use email. It works on both ends using any email service or program on any email-capable device, whether a computer, a smartphone or a tablet.

This new service, called Square Cash, comes from Square Inc., best known for equipping small brick-and-mortar merchants with smartphone-swiping devices that allow them to accept credit cards, and with tablets that act as sophisticated cash registers.

Square Cash permits you to send up to $2,500 a week in several transactions or all at once. At launch, it works only in the U.S., and with debit cards carrying either the Visa or MasterCard logo. It isn’t meant for buying things from merchants, online or off, only for person-to-person cash transfers.

There are other services that allow you to send money from one person to another digitally. You can do it via PayPal, or via a newer service called Venmo, which PayPal is in the process of acquiring. But I believe Square is simpler and more private. For instance, PayPal places received money in a PayPal account and you must transfer it to your bank in a separate step. Venmo has a strong social component that encourages users to post when payments are made.

I tested Square Cash, sending and receiving money in amounts ranging from $10 to over $1,000, with eight people, and it worked rapidly and flawlessly. I can recommend it for anyone who needs to pay a small debt, give a cash gift, split a bill, or send cash quickly and easily.

I sent several $5, $10 and $25 amounts, and asked for and received, all or part of the money back, in order to test receiving money. I also used Square Cash to settle a real bill, with a friend, to pay my half of a shared $2,223.76 fee she had covered. It worked fine in every case.

The people helping me test were generally wowed. One called it “slick.” Another replied: “Done. Two secs.” A third, with whom I had trouble using PayPal last year, said she’d use it “1,000 percent.”

An email sends cash via Square Cash, where the money will be available in the recipient’s bank account within one to two days.

There is one big caveat: You have to trust Square. The company has a strong track record in its merchant business, so it isn’t brand new to the money-transfer business. And Square says it has strong security measures and close human and machine monitoring for possible fraud. If fraud is suspected, the company says it can and will reverse the fund transfer. Still, digital services do get hacked, and email can be manipulated by thieves. The service notifies you via email or text that it appears you have sent money, which gives you a chance to cancel a transaction that didn’t come from you or was a mistake.

So, if you don’t trust Square to defeat such things, you shouldn’t use Square Cash.

Here’s how Square Cash works. Say you want to send $47.12 to your sister. You just compose an email with her email address in the “To” field and, in the “CC” field, you enter “cash@square.com.” In the subject field, you enter the amount you’re sending — in this case, “$47.12.” You can leave the message body blank, or add a note explaining you’re sending the money and why. Then, you just press Send.

If this is your first time using the service, Square will email you a link to its service, where you’ll be asked to enter your debit-card information. This is required one time only.

In seconds, Square verifies the debit card and checks that you have sufficient funds, using existing, routine Visa or MasterCard procedures, and sends an email to your sister. (Square says it never knows how much is in your account, and it encrypts your card number.)

Your sister will receive two emails: The one from you and a second from Square saying you’re sending her the money. If she accepts the payment and it’s her first time using the service, she will be asked to click a link to Square and enter her debit-card information.

Once that’s verified, the transfer is made, and the money will show up in her bank account in one to two days. She will also be empowered to send money herself.

No other account setup is required. You never need to create, or enter, a login or password. And the money goes straight from bank to bank. Neither party needs to create a fund balance with Square.

Square says most payments appear in the recipient’s account in one day. And it says a significant minority of payments appear immediately, something it hopes to make commonplace as soon as possible.

There’s one more twist, however. This simple verification system works only for transfers of up to $250 a week. To qualify for the full $2,500 limit — which is also free — you have to provide some added information, one time only. You can give Square your Facebook credentials, or provide your full name, date of birth, and the last four digits of your Social Security number.

The email on the receiving end.

If you choose the Facebook option, Square says it passes no information to Facebook at all and never posts what you’re doing on Facebook, or shares your financial activity. It says it merely looks at your Facebook profile and activity, as a Facebook friend could, in order to verify that you are a real person, with an established account there.

Square Cash does have apps for Apple and Android mobile devices, but you never need to use them. All they do is let you enter an amount you wish to transfer and automatically create an email, ready to send.

So how does Square make money from Square Cash? It says it has no plans to send you ads or offers, even for merchants with whom it does business. Instead, it plans to offer paid, premium options. One example: The ability to use Square Cash internationally.

Square Cash does have some downsides. At launch, there’s no way to see a history of your transactions. Square says your past email shows that. And the company makes no promise to pay you back from its own funds in the case of fraud, only to reverse the transaction. It also has no limit on your liability from fraud. And at launch, it only links a debit card to one email address at a time, so sending from, or to, an unlinked email address can require a new setup.

However, Square Cash is the quickest, simplest method I’ve seen for sending money from one person to another.

What if you could summon a tech-support person to pop up in seconds in a live video on your digital device? And what if that person could draw on the screen or even take over the device to solve a problem?

Well, starting Oct. 18, you can do just that with the latest in Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet line, the Kindle Fire HDX. This help system, called the Mayday button, is the most unusual feature of what is otherwise a mainly evolutionary new model of the company’s color tablets.

A better help system isn’t exactly the prime reason to buy a new tablet. After all, tablets are supposed to be simple and easy to figure out. But Mayday is consistent with Amazon’s long, well-earned reputation for customer support.

X-Ray for Music shows lyrics synchronized to the song playing on the Kindle Fire HDX.

I’ve been testing the Fire HDX, and it’s a good, basic color tablet. This latest model, which starts at $229 for the 7-inch-screen version I used, is a definite improvement on last year’s Fire HD, which started at $199 for the 7-inch version. (There’s also a costlier, larger HDX version, with an 8.9-inch screen.)

Like earlier Fire models, it’s best thought of as a hardware gateway to buying digital content from Amazon. The base model blasts ads at you from the home screen, but you can buy one without ads for $15 more.

However, the 7-inch Fire HDX, like its predecessor, still isn’t as versatile or full-featured as rival tablets, like Apple’s iPad mini or Google’s Nexus 7. It offers only a fraction of the third-party apps available from the Apple or Google app stores. Among the missing are such popular offerings as Instagram, Dropbox, Google Maps, YouTube and Netflix (Amazon says a Netflix app is coming soon).

Unlike the mini or the Nexus, the 7-inch Fire HDX lacks a rear camera, so you can’t easily show your surroundings to others during a video chat (the bigger model has a rear camera).

And the HDX has no equivalent to its rivals’ voice-controlled, artificial intelligence features, Apple’s Siri and Google Now.

And the Fire HDX turned in a so-so battery life of 7½ hours that, while better than the 6 hours of the latest Nexus 7, paled before the iPad mini’s 10 hours and 27 minutes. (I used my standard test where I set the screen to 75 percent brightness, keep the Wi-Fi on and play videos stored on the tablet until the battery dies.)

So, what makes the new Kindle HDX better than the last model? Well, it has a gorgeous, high-resolution screen that displays 323 pixels per inch, the same as the latest $229 Nexus 7, but much higher than the $329 iPad mini’s 163 ppi (though the mini’s screen is significantly larger, at 7.9 inches). The screen also was a bit more readable in sunlight than the iPad’s. The Fire HDX has a faster processor that has eliminated the latency I encountered when testing last year’s model.

The Fire HDX has a new operating system and some cool new features. The home screen still has a carousel to show recently used apps, songs, books and videos, but below that there’s now a standard grid of icons for favorite apps and you can hide the carousel if you find it distracting. There’s also a new sidebar for quickly switching among running apps. This appears when you swipe from the edge of the screen.

Perhaps my favorite new feature is called X-Ray for Music, which shows synchronized lyrics to the song you’re playing. So far, it’s only available on “tens of thousands” of Amazon’s 25 million songs, starting with the newest and most popular. But I found scattered cases in songs going back to the 1970s and enjoyed using it.

The Fire HDX is slimmer and lighter than last year’s model, and has tapered edges. But there’s a downside to this design. Because the tapered edges are narrow, the volume and power buttons have been moved to the back of the tablet. I found them clumsy and slow to use.

Like its predecessors, the Fire HDX is technically an Android tablet that buries Android so it’s invisible. The HDX lacks any hint of Google’s Android interface, the standard Google apps that come on most Android devices and the standard Android app store, Google Play. Instead it uses an Amazon operating system now called Fire OS 3.0.

Amazon has its own app store for the Fire HDX and it contains 85,000 apps, compared with roughly a million each in the Google and Apple app stores.

The Mayday help button worked mostly as advertised, though I got little useful help, partly because Amazon is training a large number of support people and few have much experience yet with the new HDX.

When you click the Mayday button, which appears in a settings bar that swipes down from the top of the screen, a small, movable video window pops up. You can see the support person, but he or she can only hear you. To better explain things, the person can draw on your screen. And if you allow it, he or she can take over the Fire to perform tasks.

The support people appeared in 10 seconds or less and were unfailingly friendly. But they often just went poking around the device, looking for a menu item or icon that would accomplish what I couldn’t figure out. In two cases, they put me on pause, to do some quick research. Amazon says their knowledge will grow as they get more familiar with the new hardware and software.

In one case, a Mayday agent I had previously talked with followed up on an earlier question concerning how to get an app that wasn’t in the Amazon app store for the HDX. She sent me an email explaining how to do a 10-step workaround.

Mayday isn’t entirely private. You have to give agents your name, email and address, the call is recorded and customer-service management can see reports on individual calls. But overall, it’s a great idea.

If you mainly want a tablet for consuming content and regularly use Amazon content, the new Kindle Fire HDX is a good deal.

I have an iPhone 4S and I upgraded to the iOS 7 operating system, but I really dislike it. Is there any way to get the old iOS 6 back?

A:

No, Apple typically doesn’t allow downgrades or reversals to an older operating system. For a brief period after the new OS appeared, there was a workaround to do it, but now you can’t.

Q:

I am concerned about the security implications of allowing Siri, the Notification Center and the new Control Center on the iPhone to be used even though my phone is locked. Is there a way to prevent that?

A:

Yes, in the Settings app in iOS 7, you can block all three features from use on the lock screen. For Notification Center and Control Center, go to their sections of the Settings app and turn off the switches that say “Access on Lock Screen.” For Siri, go to the General section of Settings, and then to “Passcode Lock.” Turn off the Siri switch under “Allow Access When Locked.”

Q:

My wife and I — one pulling 70, the other pushing 80 — need to buy new PCs. We are only interested in connecting to the Internet for news, and exchanging emails. What notebook/PC would you recommend for us? Also, should we get Windows 8 or stick with Windows 7, with which we are familiar?

A:

I would buy simple, basic Windows PCs, without touchscreens, for around $500. Stick to name brands and if possible, find models that still ship with Windows 7.

Holding video chats on your mobile devices can be a great thing. But many of the common video chat apps only allow two-party calls, at least for free, or require you to have an account with a large service or social network.

Now, there’s a new video-chatting service for mobile devices and it’s free. It allows up to 10 parties in a single chat session and it doesn’t require an account to participate in a chat. This new service, called Spin, also allows you to share photos and videos with others during a chat. And it’s built for touch so you can swipe or flick in and out of chats, which it calls “gatherings.” Or you can pinch and zoom to enlarge the whole gathering, or just the small tile representing an individual in that group.

Spin launched Tuesday evening for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. An Android version is in the works for the first quarter of 2014. The app comes from a San Francisco company called Net Power & Light, which produces apps for education.

A gathering in action, with participants shown in tiles

I’ve been testing Spin in recent days on two iPads and an iPhone, and found it to be a nice way to communicate. It has a dash of whimsy, and good video and audio quality. But Spin is so different from traditional video-chatting apps that it can be a bit confusing at first, something the company says it recognizes and promises to take steps to ameliorate.

In one test that included six people on a Saturday, some of us were at home, one was at a sidewalk cafe and one was in a vineyard. Photos and YouTube videos were shared and anyone could flick through the pictures, or advance or reverse the videos, for all to see. The person at the vineyard switched between front and rear cameras, alternately showing herself and the endless vistas of vines. In another test, a friend showed me photos of a trip to Japan while she was eating breakfast and we were talking.

When you launch the Spin app, you’re presented with a large tile representing yourself and a series of smaller tiles arranged in piles, or “stacks.” These include stacks for people you have either chatted with before, or those you’d like to invite to a gathering; invitations to gatherings on future dates; and photos and videos you may want to pull into a gathering. The photos can either be those on your own device or those you’ve stored on Facebook or Flickr. The videos can be from YouTube, or from your own Facebook videos. You can participate in a gathering without sharing any photos or videos. These stacks and tiles appear to float atop a background photo of the ocean, and you can flick them around on the screen in any arrangement you like.

Invitations can be sent for gatherings for future events, such as video chatting while watching football.

There are two ways to initiate a gathering. You just drag a tile or tiles from your People stack onto your own tile, and Spin generates invitations to the people to join the gathering. If they have the Spin app and are using it at the moment, they can join in seconds. If they aren’t active in Spin, they get an email invitation.

The other method is to set up a gathering for a specific date and time — say, the time of a televised sports event. Each person gets an email invitation to the planned gathering. If they don’t have Spin, the invitation includes a link to learn about it and get the app. Spin has accounts called Spin IDs. They aren’t needed to take part in gatherings but you need one to convene a gathering.

Once in a gathering, you not only can see and hear each other, and share photos and videos, but you can do other things. These include writing and doodling in different colors and triggering effects, like sending a stream of hearts, throwing a tomato, launching a paper airplane or triggering an animated standing ovation. I found most of these effects juvenile, but I could see how they’d be fun while everyone was watching a game on TV.

One cool feature lets you adjust the audio while watching a video to either emphasize the video’s own audio track, or the conversation about the video from participants.

You leave a gathering by just dragging your tile out of it.

Spin emphasizes that it isn’t a social network, it has no advertising and it isn’t out to gather information about you. It hopes to make money by selling premium features.

The company says it is devoted to privacy. Spin says only people who are invited can see who is in a gathering you convene and nobody can join unless you invite them, or someone you’ve invited does so. Similarly, nobody can drag you into a gathering without your consent, and nobody can see your photos and videos unless you choose to show them.

So what’s not to like about Spin? Well, I found it confusing to use at first. It wasn’t obvious how to drag people or photos in and out of gatherings for the first couple of sessions, and I resorted to an overlay of tips pointing to things on my screen. I was annoyed by the many times when I was trying to zoom a gathering to full-screen size, or shrink it, or move it, but ended up drawing colored lines instead, because there’s no clear way to turn the drawing function off.

Also, if you invite someone with one email address, but they sign in with another, they won’t show up. Spin is planning to make this clearer in invitations, and over the next month, it plans to make it easier to join gatherings from multiple emails.

On two occasions, Spin warned me I was having network problems, even though I was on a fast, reliable network that worked for other apps. The company says it’s looking into this.

Overall, Spin is worth a try for people who want to hold free group video chats on Apple devices.

I want to buy an iPhone 5s, but how can I disable the fingerprint-recognition feature so it doesn’t send my prints over the Internet where somebody might steal them?

A:

First of all, the fingerprint-recognition feature, which allows you to unlock your phone with just a touch instead of a password, is off by default. Unless you turn it on and then train it to recognize your fingers, it doesn’t operate and you can just keep typing in a password, or use no lock method at all.

Secondly, Apple says the fingerprint data never leaves your phone, never goes onto the Internet and never even is backed up to the cloud. Instead, Apple says, it is stored in a secure area of the phone’s processor chip, and the scanner checks with this stored data — not with any online database — to decide whether your finger matches the stored parameters.

Q:

I notice that on the new iPhone operating system, the phone downloads many more emails at one time, making it much more difficult to mark them as read. Is there a way around this?

A:

Yes. In a mailbox, or the combined inbox, you just tap “Edit” at the upper right, then tap “Mark All” at the lower left. Then choose “Mark As Read” from the pop-up menu and all your messages should be marked as read.

Q:

Is the new iPhone 5s compatible with Ford’s Sync system for music and phone calling in the car?

A:

I asked a Ford spokesman and he said: “Ford expects to provide our Apple customers with full compatibility for Sync v3.6.” And I can report that, while I don’t own a Ford, the iPhone 5s I tested was able to make and receive phone calls, stream music over Bluetooth or via a cable, and transmit text messages to my new-model car.

Creating your own videos is easier to do than ever, and it’s more tempting than ever to view and share them on multiple devices. But it isn’t always simple. Videos can be large files that are clumsy to move around. And they aren’t always created in formats compatible with every device you or your friends may use.

One obvious solution is cloud storage and sharing. Popular social networks Vine and Instagram let you take smartphone videos and share them from the cloud, but these videos are just seconds long. You can store longer videos on general cloud storage services like Dropbox and SkyDrive, but video isn’t their primary focus.

With RealPlayer Cloud, an iPhone can share videos with an Android phone, and vice versa.

Now, RealNetworks, the media-software company whose last major product launch was in 2008, is aiming to make video storage, portability and sharing a no-brainer with a new service called RealPlayer Cloud. It lets users of many different devices store their videos online; stream or download them; share them with others (even if the recipients lack Real’s software); and move videos easily among devices on the same network. It also has built-in playback and sharing of your friends’ Facebook videos.

Real boasts that its new service reformats videos to best suit the device to which you stream or download them, taking into account device type, screen size, bandwidth and storage space.

The service works using new or updated Real apps on Android devices, iPhones, iPads, Windows PCs and Roku TV set-top boxes. A Mac app is in the works, but meanwhile it can work, with some limitations, in a Web browser on a Mac (or any device with a browser).

I’ve been testing RealPlayer Cloud on all these devices and despite some hitches, found it performs as advertised. Real’s mobile apps and website were better designed and easier to use than its old-looking Windows app. Real’s new iOS apps (the ones for iPhone and iPad) worked well, but I ran into trouble with the Android version, though the company has fixed much of that problem.

I easily uploaded to RealPlayer Cloud a video of my wife and son dancing at his wedding a few years ago. I streamed it or downloaded it, via the cloud or my home network, to a PC, an iPhone, an iPad, a Web browser on a Mac and an Android phone. I also could stream it through my TV on a special RealPlayer Cloud channel via a Roku box.

An Android phone

I did the same with fresh videos captured on an iPhone 5 and the Android phone, a Nexus 4. It works on iOS 5 and later, Android 4 and later, and on Windows 7 and 8. On the Mac, I was able to use it in both the Chrome and Safari browsers.

I downloaded videos from Real’s cloud onto my iPad, iPhone and Android phone, for playback on a plane without Wi-Fi. I was able to share cloud videos with others by emailing them links and they could view the videos on almost any device without having to download the app — a big plus. Another plus: While you can share videos to large social networks, you can limit your sharing to small groups.

RealPlayer Cloud worked very well on every device except the Nexus 4. On the Android phone, I saw stuttering and buffering of the exact same cloud videos that played smoothly on the iPhone, iPad, Web and Windows — even though all were on the same Internet connection. The company sent me a revised, pre-release Android version that fixed the playback issues but not another problem — frequent crashing. Real says it was still working on that Tuesday.

The apps are free, but the catch is that, like a lot of cloud services, RealPlayer Cloud charges for storage. You get 2 gigabytes of storage free, but must pay $49 a year for 25 gigabytes; $99 for 100 gigabytes; or $299 for 300 gigabytes.

There are other limitations. The company stresses the product is “designed to help consumers move, watch and share videos they have created.” So to discourage piracy of TV shows and movies, there’s a 15-minute limit on videos shared from PCs or the Web. There’s no limit on videos shared from the camera rolls of iPhones or Android phones because it’s assumed those were taken by the user.

Finally, while the service is out of beta and isn’t invitation-only, the company warns that even though it will go live on Tuesday night, some users may have to wait a few days or even a week to get it. That’s because Real wants to guard against its servers getting overloaded and crashing.

Real says that when you upload a video from one device, it creates several versions of that video in its servers in the most common formats used by other devices.

There are common features across the different versions of the product for different devices. In each, you can view all your videos — stored on your device and in the cloud. Icons tell where they live. You can view just videos from your camera roll, or those you’ve downloaded.

If there are other devices on your local network running RealPlayer Cloud, those are listed in the app for quick video transfers. This feature doesn’t work with the Web-browser version. And while the Windows app can be seen by iOS and Android devices, it can’t detect them. The company says it views the Windows app as mainly a server for the mobile apps.

The mobile apps also let you play and share, but not download, a preselected offering of Web videos, plus videos from your Facebook friends, though you don’t have to link it to Facebook.

I think RealPlayer Cloud is well-designed and makes storing and sharing videos easy across different devices. There are other ways to do it, but this one is pretty clean and simple.

Apple brings out a new top-of-the-line iPhone model every year, but a redesign only every other year. In the intervening cycles, the company tends to keep the phone’s exterior the same, but changes the innards and the software. This is one of those in-between years, but the new iPhone 5s has a potentially game-changing hardware feature and a radically new operating system.

The iPhone 5s’s reliable, easy Touch ID.

The iPhone 5s is the first digital device I’ve seen with a simple, reliable fingerprint reader — one you can confidently use, without a thought, to unlock the device instead of typing in a passcode. You can even use this fingerprint reader, called Touch ID, to authorize purchases from Apple’s App, iTunes and e-book stores.

It sounds like a gimmick, but it’s a real advance, the biggest step ever in biometric authentication for everyday devices. After using Touch ID, I found it annoying to go back to typing in passcodes on my older iPhone.

The new iPhone 5s, which starts at $199 with a two-year contract and goes on sale for all major carriers on Friday, has a beefier processor that Apple says can double its performance. And it has a better camera.

Then there’s the new operating system on this phone, called iOS 7. Its new look, new user interface and new functions represent the biggest overhaul to the iPhone’s core software since the original model launched in 2007. Nearly everything has been improved, including multi-tasking, notifications, access to common controls, email, Web browsing and Siri. Like any big change, it’s a shock at first, but I have come to like it and consider it a step forward, despite a few issues.

The new iOS 7 won’t just be limited to the 5s, or Apple’s other new iPhone, the $99 iPhone 5c. It’ll be a free, optional download starting on Wednesday for many older model iPhones and iPads.

After a week of testing the iPhone 5s, I like it and can recommend it for anyone looking for a premium, advanced smartphone. If you are an iPhone fan with any model older than the iPhone 5, the new 5s will be a big step up. If you own an iPhone 5, there’s less of a case for upgrading, unless you want the fingerprint reader and improved camera. You can get the new OS free of charge.

iOS 7 has simpler-looking icons.

Hardware

The Touch ID fingerprint sensor is built into the iPhone’s familiar, round Home button. To use it, you must first set up a passcode as a backup and then go through a brief training session for each finger you want to use. There have been laptops and at least one other phone with fingerprint sensors, but they have generally been unreliable and people tended to stop using them. Apple is using a different technology that turns the Home button (which still performs its usual functions) into a rapid, accurate finger scanner.

A steel ring around the button detects your finger and then a sensor scans it. This sensor can identify your finger even if it’s off-center or when the phone is in any position. It looks beneath the outer layer of skin, a capability Apple says means it won’t work with dead tissue, such as a severed finger or a plastic fingerprint imprint — favorite security workarounds seen in the movies. The detection process only takes a second or two.

In my scores of tests, with three fingers, the reader never failed me and none of the 20 or so people I asked to test it was able to unlock the phone. If a finger match fails three times, the phone offers you a chance to type in your passcode instead. After five failures, it requires the passcode. Apple says the odds another person’s finger would work are 1 in 50,000, versus 1 in 10,000 for breaking a four-digit passcode.

There is one bug in the system: Sometimes, while trying to use a finger to authenticate an online purchase, the phone asks for a password. Apple says it expects to fix this bug very quickly.

The iPhone 5s boasts something called a 64-bit processor, which means the system can process data in bigger chunks, and thus much faster. But I didn’t notice any dramatic speed improvement, partly because few apps have yet to be rewritten to take advantage of it.

The new camera is still 8 megapixels, but has a bigger sensor that allows for larger pixels that can capture more light and color information. It has a lens that lets in more light and a flash that allows for warmer tones in low light. All my pictures were slightly sharper than on the iPhone 5 and low-light pictures were much less washed out by the flash. The camera app has been improved, with a new burst mode that takes many shots quickly and then picks the best ones, and a slow-motion video feature that lets you choose parts of an action sequence to slow down. It worked seamlessly.

Voice calls were excellent, even over Bluetooth in a car. I didn’t do a formal battery test, but the iPhone 5s lasted a full workday, including one day where it still had 15 percent of battery left after 14 hours.

iOS 7 gives an overview of your day, such as weather and schedule.

Operating System

There are too many new features in iOS 7 to list here, but it’s a big improvement. The icons have been redesigned to be flatter and simpler, but they appear to float over your wallpaper, giving the effect of depth. Many elements are translucent, subtly changing shades to match the wallpaper color.

The fonts are sharper, finer and more delicate. Buttons and controls are thinner and lighter and, in the browser, they disappear or shrink to make a little more room for content. Overall, the effect is to make the 4-inch screen seem larger.

Any app now can be set to update in the background, though the system learns the ones you use most often and updates them intelligently to save battery.

The phone now shows you thumbnails of every running app and you can quit any of them by just flicking upward, as in Palm’s now-dead WebOS operating system.

The browser shows a stack of open tabs.

The notification panel, which pulls down from the top, now gives you an overview of your day, including weather and schedule.

And, taking a page from Android, the iPhone now has a quick-settings Control Center that pulls up from the bottom to control Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, music, brightness and other features. It even can turn on a flashlight function.

The browser gives you a handsome graphical view of open tabs and the email program now downloads thousands of messages at once, letting you mark them all as read with a few clicks.

I found Siri to be more accurate and useful. It now has an almost human voice and can glean answers from Bing, Twitter and Wikipedia.

The photos app now automatically groups your camera roll by time and place. You can send photos with one tap to other iOS users nearby.

In iTunes, there’s now a Pandora-like radio feature.

My biggest disappointment is that there have been only minor improvements to the keyboard. Unlike in Android, Apple still bars you from substituting third-party keyboards with better auto-correction. The company says this is due to security worries.

Overall, however, the new iPhone 5s is a delight. Its hardware and software make it the best smartphone on the market.

We have an iPad for me and my wife, but we’d like a tablet for our daughter, 4, to use on long drives and flights to keep her entertained. We would like to find something at a lower price point than an iPad, but something reliable and durable on which she can watch movies and TV show episodes. Do you have any suggestions?

A:

I’d recommend the seven-inch Kindle Fire or Fire HD, which start at $159 and $199, respectively. They have access to lots of kid-friendly content and even have a feature called FreeTime, which allows parents to preselect what content kids can access, restrict the time they spend with the tablet and create a special kid-friendly home screen. Amazon offers a subscription service, FreeTime Unlimited, which provides unlimited apps, games, movies and TV shows handpicked for ages 3 to 8 for $5 a month.

Q:

I will spend the month of October in Paris in an apartment without an Internet connection. I will have my new Verizon Galaxy III phone and my new Lenovo Yoga laptop. Is there an easy or inexpensive way to connect without visiting a cybercafe?

A:

Your phone should be able to connect to the Internet over the cellular-data network and the phone can act as a portable Wi-Fi hot spot (a feature you turn on in settings) that will enable the laptop to see it as a Wi-Fi network and get on the Internet. However, this can be costly if you are roaming on your U.S. network for a month. So, assuming your carrier and plan allow this, I suggest you switch the phone to a French carrier, which can cut costs dramatically. This may require you to get the phone “unlocked,” either here or in Paris.

Q:

I have two homes, both of which have cable TV and Internet service. Lately, I heard of Slingbox as a vehicle to make cable TV service “travel” with the subscriber. My question is whether I could use this technology to make one cable TV subscription work at both locations?

A:

Yes, that’s exactly what Slingbox does. It’s a small box, starting at $180, that connects to your cable box and home Internet router. It then sends the live and recorded programs from your house, via the Internet, to a laptop, tablet or smartphone. You can control the cable box remotely. The smartphone or tablet app costs $15, but there are no subscription fees, beyond what you already pay for cable at the originating location and for Internet service at both locations.